Showing posts with label hindustani. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hindustani. Show all posts

Thursday, July 23, 2026

Quick notes: Myanmar corridor | Stealth fighter...

  • After Pak, It's Bangladesh, Myanmar: China plans new corridor that runs roughly 1,700 km from Kunming to Myanmar's coast. This is China building Indian Ocean access on India's eastern flank, mirroring what CPEC and Gwadar do on the western flank via Pakistan. Beijing intends to extend the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor to Bangladesh as part of its larger Maritime Belt and Road Initiative to boost its Indian Ocean presence.


  • China's Teesta Move: Why India should be very, very alarmed about China's Teesta move in Bangladesh. The firm involved in the project is PowerChina is also part of the strategic works with the People's Liberation Army. Pakistan, in the meanwhile, reportedly proposed a 'Joint Military Command' that comes alongside offers of 16-48 JF-17 Block III fighters - together with a simulator already delivered two months ago. That's the first piece of Pakistani military equipment to enter the country since 1971


  • Hundreds vs Zero: If war were to break out between India and China tomorrow, one side could send hundreds of stealth fighter jets into battle, while the other may not be able to send even one. China may already have around 500 operational J-20 Mighty Dragon stealth fighters, its most advanced jet. Delhi's operational stealth fighter inventory today stands at exactly zero.


  • Kaveri To J-20: How China Overtook India In A 40-Year-Old Race To Build Fighter Jets. China's early efforts were disastrous. Many countries would have cancelled the programme. But China doubled down.

    Between 2010 and 2020, Beijing invested approximately USD 42 billion under its "Two Engines" initiative, pouring unprecedented resources into superalloy metallurgy, manufacturing technologies, testing infrastructure, and specialised research institutes. Failures were treated not as embarrassments but as engineering data.


  • The tables are turning: As Chinese Tech Pulls Ahead, U.S. Fears It Will Become Dependent. China could surpass the US in biopharmaceutical innovation within this decade. “For decades now, we’ve been used to a world where the technology and innovation comes out of the West


  • China takes supercomputer crown from US for first time since 2017: LineShine' beat the USA's El Capitan system and exceeded 2 exaflops for the first time.


  • E20 Petrol Debate: 'No Politician Has The Guts'



  • Security nightmare: Anthropic’s powerful Mythos AI reportedly breached ‘almost all’ NSA classified systems within a few hours during red-team test — report sheds more light on the U.S. government's sudden ban on the flagship models


  • China Has Matched Anthropic in Cybersecurity, Resetting AI Race: Chinese cybersecurity company 360 Security Technology released a new bug-finding tool called Tulongfeng. The company said it was comparable to Mythos in finding bugs. Those capabilities have alarmed many national-security officials and CEOs.


  • Top American AI execs sound alarm on Chinese models: Silicon Valley and Washington are debating a multibillion-dollar question: Should American companies be able to use Chinese AI models?

    Nvidia CEO: Jensen Huang argues American companies should be allowed to use Chinese AI models

    China narrows AI gap, challenges US influence . . .


  • Open-weight GLM-5.2 AI model powered by Huawei silicon: Chinese Z.ai's latest model tops AI ranking charts amid Anthropic Fable 5 ban.


  • CATL unveils Tener Sodium-Ion storage system: 15,000-cycle lifespan and 30-year durability. . . Battery breakthrough that smashes coal.


  • Chinese juggernaut: Inside China’s Race to Overtake European Supercars. Nissan CEO: China is setting the auto industry's 'future standards'


  • India's Ghost Projects: Empty Stations, Airports & Schools



  • Strategic autonomy requires defence tech to leave foreign crutch: India remains heavily dependent on foreign suppliers for some of the most critical technologies. Part of the problem lies in a persistent misunderstanding of technology transfer.


  • Every attempt was made to hide the loot: Ayodhya shows why keeping temples outside state control is not enough.


  • Drama over substance: Making an ass of Indian tech.


  • Putin in trouble? Over 40% of refining capacity hit: Expert warns Russia could ‘disintegrate’ over fuel shortage. . . China's Great Betrayal? Has Russia's biggest energy gamble just collapsed?


  • Low cost killing machines: “The average life expectancy of a Russian recruit right now arriving on the battlefield in Ukraine is estimated to be between 20 and 30 minutes


  • Raag Gaud Malhar: Sri. Aniruddh Aithal - gift to humanity


Saturday, May 23, 2026

Quick notes: Emperor Xi | Ground 'drones'...

  • Trump’s Pursuit of a Partnership With China Raises Concerns in India: Rubio has a gargantuan task during his visit to Delhi: defuse tensions over Trump’s anti-India aggression and overtures to China. Trump found time to lavish praise on Xi Jinping calling him “a great leader” and “a friend.” The two men, Mr. Trump said, would “have a fantastic future together.”

    Trump's comment that he would revisit arms sales to Taiwan has stirred anxiety across Asia and prompted questions about U.S. security commitments. Indian leaders are among those with concerns.

    Trump-Xi Bonhomie: Should India Be Uneasy?: A former Indian foreign secretary, a leading China hawk until recently, has advised the Modi govt that a reassessment of Quad is overdue. But it is easier said than done, given the mindset of the Indian elite.


  • Xi Is Truly Done Falling For The Great American Bluff: China kept the upper hand during Trump's visit by, amongst other things, Xi Jinping retaining his poise and distance while Trump tried to ingratiate himself with flattery and body language.

    At the opening of the formal delegation-level talks, the lining up of the top-most American corporate leaders behind Trump suggested a homage being paid to Xi's China, reminiscent of the kowtowing to the Chinese emperor in the past. Trump was messaging a willingness to explore possibilities of renewed economic interdependence with China.

    Addressing Trump at the formal talks, Xi was sententious and demanding. He called on the US to be "partners, not rivals" with China. . . . amusing to see Trump kissing Xi's ass.


  • Christian nationalist push: Trump administration pushes narrative of Christian founding at Rally. . One Nation under Yeshu.


  • Trump Is Setting His Sights on Restricting Legal Immigration: A new approach is emerging on legal immigration, one that makes it harder for those abroad to enter the United States, and for those already here on a temporary basis to stay.


  • Ground drones taking on dangerous missions: The "Ground Drones" rescuing Ukraine's wounded from the Front Lines


  • China Boosts Indian Ocean Ambitions: China despatches thousands of fishing boats to the region for illegal fishing, thus depleting the fish stock of the region.

    During Operation Sindoor, hundreds of such boats appeared, possibly to harass the Indian Navy.

    Such 'grey zone' activities are conducted to indicate China's intention to enter the region, gather intelligence, create civil-military confusion, exploit lack of preparedness by adversaries or treated as a stop-gap arrangement before full-fledged naval deployments.

    Even though China had commissioned the Djibouti naval base in 2017, initially as a logistical support facility at the chokepoint of the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, it is now being expanded to include submarine docking facilities.

    China also initiated a number of dual-use ports or maritime facilities -- estimated to be more than a hundred across 46 countries in the region. These are considered to be a counter to the US-led maritime world order as well as to marginalise India in the region.


  • Supreme Court of India: 'If Parents Are IAS Officers, Why Reservation For Their Children?'


  • Beyond just assembling phones: Lava's ₹1,100 Cr bet is to build what's inside. Aims to shift from mere assembly to producing key components domestically. . . a lot can be done even before domestic fabs go live.


  • Three Charts:

  • India Oil Consumption: 2013 to 2024: 5.621M bbl/d for 2024

    USD to Indian Rupee - 2013 to 2026

    Brent Crude Price - 2010 to 2026


  • Uber-ize gold: For national necessity & personal prosperity. How a National Gold Library could transform household jewellery into productive capital, strengthen the rupee, and cut imports.


  • Ustad Rashid Khan: Raag Shyam Kalyan



Sunday, April 26, 2026

Quick notes: Cash cow | Laser defense...

  • For Korean companies, India is a lucrative cash cow: LG India reported revenue of Rs 24,366 crore and a net profit of Rs 2,203 crore last year. Royalty payments to its Korean parent reached Rs 454.61 crore. But the real headline came with its 2025 IPO: In one stroke, LG India’s market capitalisation surpassed that of its global headquarters’. And it was purely due to generous policy environment.

    Hyundai Motor India and its sibling Kia tell a similar tale of extraction masked as investment. Royalty payments stand at 3.5% of sales revenue, translating into thousands of crores annually repatriated to Seoul. Such an anomaly has left Tata Motors and Mahindra to fight an uphill battle against what many term subsidized Korean pricing power.

    Samsung India completes the triumvirate of value extractors. Its revenue for the first time crossed Rs 1.11 lakh crore during 2025, making it the only consumer-electronics firm in India to cross the trillion-rupee mark. During 2024, royalty remittances to the Korean parent hit Rs 3,322 crore, roughly 40% of that year’s net profit. Retained earnings have ballooned and been diverted to Vietnam.

    Profits earned from Indian consumers through high royalties, IPO cash-outs and dividend flows are effectively subsidizing Vietnamese factories that then export finished goods back into India. Why? Should Korean conglomerates plough cash extracted from India into manufacturing facilities in a smaller neighbor that then undercuts Indian industry? The optics is toxic: India as a lucrative cash cow, Vietnam as the preferred factory floor.

    Decades of liberalization were sold on the promise that FDI would catalyze domestic industry, transfer technology and create balanced growth. Instead, the policy has tilted towards foreign giants who repatriate profits, royalties, special dividends and IPO proceeds liberally.

    On the other hand, Indian firms struggle with higher compliance costs, delayed approvals, and a royalty burden that starves local innovation.

  • Korean loot: The proof is in the math: In just the last 12 months, Hyundai and LG repatriated $4.7 billion in royalties and profits. That is nearly ₹40,000 crore leaving our economy.


  • Funding the Adversary: India cannot counter an expansionist rival, which lays claim to vast Indian territories including an entire state, while simultaneously bankrolling its rise.


  • Yay! You signed a trade-deal, now we will screw you: Indian exports face rising cost pressure as EU plans carbon tax expansion


  • Galgotias School of Innovation: AI making work cheaper and this is a BIG Problem for Indian IT Services



  • Pakistan Is Getting a Stealth Fighter in 2026: China is ramping up the timeline to deliver J-35A to Pak


  • Trump kissing Xi Jinping's ass: A quiet U.S. favor for Xi Jinping.. A U.S. quota increase at the IMF would rescue China’s bad loans. President Trump is scheduled to visit Beijing in May for a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and he will come bearing at least one surprising gift: A budget request to Congress to hand more money to Mr. Xi’s friends at the IMF.


  • Chinese satellites over Mideast battlefield put US on edge: Chinese AI company MizarVision claimed on social media to have tracked the movements of American aircraft carriers, F-22 stealth fighters and B-52 bombers by using AI to analyze satellite data.


  • Why this Chinese EV terrifies Europe’s carmakers: Luxury car makers staring at Chinese onslaught.


  • China's Geely just built one of the most efficient engines ever: Geely now holds a Guinness World Record for thermal efficiency, with its new i-HEV Hybrid system rated at 48.4%


  • India’s “Star Wars” LASER DEFENCE: DRDO's $3 solution to a $30,000 drone problem. 100 kW Dura-2 can melt drones in seconds.



  • Microwave weapon: 20-gigawatt Chinese microwave weapon touted as ‘Starlink’s worst nightmare’ by country's media — portable 5-ton device can deliver full-minute destructive bursts


  • Lesson for India, the GREAT consumer of imported tech: Iran claims US exploited networking equipment backdoors during strikes — says devices from Cisco and others failed despite blackout in attack that 'indicates deep sabotage'


  • Privacy risk: Google Chrome lacks protection against one of the most basic and common ways to track users online


  • Raag: Kamod By Manjiri Alegaonkar


Friday, December 19, 2025

Quick notes: State capitalism | Denaturalisation...

  • CEOs are learning to live with Trump’s turn to state capitalism. Last week Nvidia finally got permission to sell one its most advanced semiconductor chips to China. The catch: The federal government will take 25% of the revenue from those sales.

    The Nvidia deal says something important about the relationship between business and government under President Trump. His regular intrusions into the boardroom—taking equity stakes, revenue slices or a “golden share”; prodding companies to lower prices or sell drugs through a federal website—are a sort of state capitalism, in which the state doesn’t necessarily own companies, but uses its substantial leverage to steer their behavior.


  • Trump's biggest gift to CCP yet: Trump’s decision to let China have Nvidia chips is dangerous. . . China can accelerate science and engineering with the H200 better than any of the newer hardware from Nvidia.


  • Denaturalisation: Some naturalised Americans likely to lose citizenship
  • "De-Indianise" Call: "1 H-1B Worker Equals 10 Illegal Aliens". . . Brown MAGAs go into hiding.
  • Hit hard by Trump: Tata, Infosys and Cognizant to bear brunt of Trump’s $100,000 H-1B fee

  • Worst fears coming true: China may have reverse engineered EUV lithography tool in covert lab, report claims — employees given fake IDs to avoid secret project being detected, prototypes expected in 2028


  • India needs its own 'Singapore' (outside India): As global scrutiny grows, Chinese firms look to call Singapore home. "The Singapore brand is trusted worldwide. Singapore is valued for its international flavour, neutrality, and is culturally easy ‍for Chinese firms and their expats to adapt to,"


  • India's Nuclear Power Push: Big goals, slow build. Nuclear energy share in total installed capacity remains limited, fluctuating between 1.9 per cent and 2.9 per cent from FY10 to FY24.


  • 'Thar Desert Will Reach Delhi Soon': Around 90 percent of the Aravalli hills is in the height of 30 to 80 metres. Now they are in danger of perishing. . . BikAss Gando Thayo Che


  • 73 Ragas with Abby V:



  • We don't want no AI: LG forced a Copilot web app onto its TVs but will let you delete it after user backlash.


  • Education cut off from society: Unable to learn English, Andhra student dies by suicide.


  • Cover up: The UK wants Apple and Google to install “Nudity-Blocking Software” on iPhones and Android phones


  • Is Iran dying?: Who Can Solve Iran’s Many Problems? Not I, Says the President.


  • The US reverse engineered the Iranian Shahed-136 drones! :


  • Aravallis: With one legal stroke, over 90% of the Aravalli range was erased on paper, handing it over to mining mafias, real-estate sharks & profiteers.





Sunday, August 31, 2025

Quick notes: China threat | MAGA backlash...

  • Conjoined enemies: Lessons From Op Sindoor. "So far we used to say that look China would assist Pakistan during operations, during a conflict, etc. But I think this time it came out loud and clear that it is more like they are conjoined".

  • Beware Of China Threat In North East: China is extremely proactive in politics in Shan state (and indeed in many other parts of Myanmar) as a study about China's overt and opaque role in South Asia reveals.

  • India-China trade: Deficit widens to $99.2 bn. "India is an iron ore seller but not a high-quality steel exporter".

  • Will BRICS boom under Trump's watch? "The dollar would stay "dominant for years, but parallel settlement systems in yuan, rupee and ruble will grow. This won't dethrone the dollar but will steadily chip away at its monopoly."

  • Why the thriving Indian diaspora in the US is not an asset anymore: The excessive publicity about Indian success stories and their high income and wealth levels has begun to breed envy and resentment in non-elite sections of the American populace.

    There might be a campaign against H1B visas and even a gradual expulsion of persons stuck in a limbo with pending green cards and pending citizenship.

    The ground beneath our feet is shifting. And for the time being, the best strategy might be to stop crowing about us becoming a large economy (we are nowhere there in per capita terms anyway) or becoming a big power. We can lie low till our time comes.

  • 'Is it time to pause H1-B visas?': Debate intensifies over Indian tech hires

  • AI destroying careers: There is now clearer evidence AI is wrecking young Americans’ job prospects.

    AI is eating entry-level coding and customer service roles, according to a new Stanford study — junior job listings drop 13% in three years in fields vulnerable to AI

  • Raag MARU BIHAG: Shehnai - Pandit S. Ballesh & Krishna Ballesh



  • "Brahmins Profiteering...": Top Trump Aide On India's Russian Oil Trade. . . . . USA unhinged.. vinAshakAlE viparIta buddhi.

  • We should target Meta, X and Netflix instead: From Pepsi To McDonald's, US Giants Face Swadeshi Heat Amid Trump Tariffs

  • Trump faces MAGA backlash: Trump has opened the doors of American universities to six lakh Chinese students, even as his administration continues its crackdown on International students. "We're going to allow their students to come in. It's very important, 600,000 students. It's very important. But we're going to get along with China".

  • Flip-flopping approach: How Trump Reversed Course on Chinese Students

  • Imperialist: Meta's Zuckerberg pressed Trump on digital taxes before tariff threat. . . . Trump vows export curbs, tariffs in digital tax reprisal

  • Era of US industrial policy: Investors worry Trump's Intel deal kicks off era of US industrial policy.. Intel did not need the money. SoftBank poured $2 billion into the chipmaker three days before the Trump announcement.

  • Delhi pollution cutting life expectancy by 8 years: Delhi remains the most polluted city in the world, with average fine particulate matter (PM2.5) levels exceeding the WHO guideline by more than 20 times.

  • Integrated Air Defence Weapon System (IADWS): Chinese expert hails India's new laser-based weapon

Saturday, May 3, 2025

Quick notes: Indus water | Rare-earth minerals...

  • Indus water treaty: Holding the Indus Water Treaty “in abeyance” means nothing. Abeyance is not abrogation. It merely means in practical terms that India will be more forceful, first, in exploiting the three eastern rivers — Ravi, Beas and Sutlej, before turning its sights on the three western Rivers — the Indus and its two tributaries — Chenab and Jhelum.

    So, denying Pakistanis even “a drop” of any of these waters is not a practical proposition in the here and now, and cannot be engineered out of thin air in the near or even mid-term. Constructing the dam infrastructure and system of subsidiary dams, etc on the eastern rivers to divert them fully to flow through India — assuming it is at all, practicable, will take India some two decades to realise. In all this time, the western river waters will be available to Pakistan.



  • Arm-twisting: US pressures India to give Amazon, Walmart full market access.


  • Blended wing aircraft: JetZero Secures $235M U.S. Air Force Contract As United Airlines Eyes 200 Orders For Revolutionary Blended-Wing Aircraft


  • Setback for domestic chips: Adani pauses talks with Israel's Tower for $10 billion India chip foray. "Did not make strategic and commercial sense for the group".


  • Indian owned startup in Silicon Valley: These electric motors could help break the world’s dependence on China's rare-earths. Conifer technical lead Yateendra Deshpande spent years helping design some of the world’s most advanced electric motors, including the ones powering Lucid Motors luxury cars. He has worked at Apple on its ill-fated car project. His co-founder, Ankit Somani, worked on data-center designs at Oracle and Google.


  • Land-grab: 50 Christian farmers embroiled in land dispute join BJP hours after Waqf Bill passed. They have been protesting for several months for revenue rights over their properties, allegedly claimed by the Waqf Board.


  • Muslim brotherhood: Why is Pakistan deporting Afghans? Not Pakistan's 'jugular vein'?


  • 30% less jobs: Microsoft's CEO reveals that AI writes up to 30% of its code — some projects may have all of its code written by AI


  • China's next-gen J-36: Tri-Engine Setup, No Tail: Inside China's New Sixth-Gen Fighter Jets


  • Bhajan - Hari Om Tatsat: Raza Ali Khan · Ustad Munawar Ali Khan


Sunday, March 16, 2025

Quick notes: Tariff tantrums | Sweatshop advocates...

  • US push for grand trade agreement with India The US is pushing India to negotiate a "large" and "grand" bilateral trade agreement while seeking opening the agriculture sector for American businesses, saying "it just can not stay closed".


  • Hurting everyone else but sparing China: Donald Trump makes Chinese stocks (somewhat) great again.


  • ‘Closest target’: Why is Trump targeting allies while sparing China?


  • Sweatshop advocates: Mr. Amitabh Kant, Advocating an 80-90 Hour Week is Abetting Multiple Offences


  • Dr Chetan Nayak: The man behind Microsoft’s decadeslong quest to build a quantum computer


  • WIN-WIN!: Solar panels above waterways and farms... Gujarat innovation spreads world over!



  • Nvidia, AMD, Broadcom and now Intel: Major US tech firms now have Chinese-descent individuals as their CEOs, shows how valuable China’s talent is for the tech industry.

  • Astonishing, if true: China’s in-House EUV machines reportedly entering trial production in Q3 2025, utilizing an approach that offers a simpler, efficient design; SMIC & Huawei to benefit greatly

  • Han juggernaut: Why a Chinese Gadget Company Can Make an Electric Car and Apple Can’t

  • China Piles the Pressure on India in Its Own Backyard: China has also poured billions into 46 commercial ports across the region, 36 of which are capable of hosting naval assets


  • 'India Has Missed Every Bus': "India has missed every bus; not just one. We don't know which bus is coming next. I know for sure it will miss that too. To imagine that by 2047, we will be better than the US or China is just living in a dream world".


  • Shiv Kailash: Rishab Rikhiram Sharma



Friday, August 2, 2024

Quick notes: Death by landslides | Power-hungry AI...

  • Man-made catastrophe: Man-made Church-made disaster. 62 per cent of the green cover in Wayanad district disappeared between 1950 and 2018 while plantation cover rose by around 1,800 per cent. Around 85 per cent of the total area of Wayanad was under forest cover until the 1950s.


  • Cardinal sin: Church organized agitations against restricting commercial activities in ecologically sensitive areas.


  • Over-Tourism: Wayanad received more than 1 million domestic and foreign tourists last year, nearly triple the number in 2011 when a federal govt report warned against over-development. Kerala has witnessed nearly 60% of the landslides in India between 2015 and 2022 . . . . Experts panel locates 70,582 buildings in buffer zones; most number of structures in Wayanad


  • Scientists May Have Discovered the Cause of Autism: researchers from the University of Fukui investigated the link between polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) in umbilical cord blood samples and autism scores in 200 children. The study identified one particular compound in the umbilical cord blood acid, called diHETrE, that may have "strong implications" for ASD severity.


  • "Muscular Nationalism": India-China military tensions persist even as their trade surges. India’s exports to China stood at $16 billion last year while imports were more than $100 billion.


  • Why the Internet Is Running Out of Electricity: The massive power draw of Generative AI is overtaxing our grid.



  • “Where” will the Energy for AI come from?: Google reveals 48% increase in greenhouse gas emissions from 2019, largely driven by data center energy demands.


  • Generative AI patents: China beat the U.S. in generative AI patents by 6-to-1 for the past ten years — almost 10,000 Chinese patents filed last year alone


  • AI superpower: Chinese AI built off open-source code matches American tech in chatbot benchmark tests.


  • Google pulls Gemini AI ad from Olympics after backlash: "Why would anyone want to replace a child’s creativity and authentic expression with words written by a computer?"


  • Vidushi Sangeeta Katti Kulkarni: Enna Paliso | Kannada Devotional



Sunday, June 30, 2024

Quick notes: Muslim "brotherhood" | Millionaire exodus...

Friday, May 24, 2024

Quick notes: Bubble territory | Domestic chips...

  • Indian stocks overvalued? Squirreling away a portion of one’s income for a rainy day would typically be considered prudent behavior. Yet, in India, it’s helping make stocks overvalued.

    Systematic Investment Plans (SIPs) were introduced to help investors periodically put aside money in a disciplined manner. SIPs deduct cash every month from an investor’s bank account and invest the proceeds into selected mutual funds. As more money is directed toward these funds monthly, the portfolio managers are forced to buy stocks even when their valuations might not be as attractive.

    For instance, of the nearly 4,900 actively traded India-listed stocks, 300 stocks had a fall in revenue in the last two consecutive financial years. Yet, 216 of these stocks rose over the past 12 months. In fact, small-cap companies such as food packaging carton manufacturer Rollatainers and Tantia Constructions, an infrastructure company, have had three years of falling growth. Yet, their stock has risen more than 300% over the past 12 months.


  • Chip news:
    14-nanometer: Tata Electronics prepares ground for high-end chips


    Zoho into chips? India's Zoho plans $700 million foray into chipmaking

    Rising star: Alibaba's Yitian 710 is the fastest Arm-based CPU for cloud servers, study claims

    Decoupling: Huawei brings sanctions-busting Kirin 9000C CPU to desktop PCs to replace banned Intel Alder Lake chips

    RISC-V laptop: Chinese startup unveils the first RISC-V based AI CPU, powers the K1 domestic laptop

    Tech independence: Chinese govt pushes Huawei's HarmonyOS hard, sets adoption targets to beat Windows, Android, and iOS

    Defying sanctions: Blacklisted China chipmaker SMIC becomes the world's second-largest pure-play foundry by revenue.


  • Stranglehold on clean energy: China already makes as many batteries as the entire world wants


  • No juice for EVs: Amid growing demand, America is running out of power.


  • Energy transition: Coal share in India’s electricity mix drops below 50% for the first time since 1966


  • Cow dung's key role in India's energy industry: Asia's biggest compressed biogas plant is in Lehragaga, Punjab. It can turn 300 tonnes of paddy straw into 33 tonnes of biogas every day.


  • Begum Parveen Sultana: Raag Puriya Dhanashree



  • Vegetarians, watch this: The Science of Vitamin B12


  • Feeling hot, hot, hot? How India's cities can keep the mercury at bay


  • Protein Supplements: Top medical body's advisory urges people to avoid protein supplements


  • AI tramples on copyrights: Eight newspaper publishers sue Microsoft and OpenAI over copyright infringement. “The current GPT-4 LLM will output near-verbatim copies of significant portions of the publishers’ works when prompted to do so,”


Friday, September 29, 2023

Quick notes: Metaverse | Hot iPhone...

  • Real life is stubbornly appealing: Metaverse: what happened to Mark Zuckerberg's next big thing? VR is still fringe. It definitely isn't how most people choose to spend their time.


  • iPhone 15 gets really hot: Widespread iPhone 15 overheating reports, with temperatures as high as 116F


  • It's 'really the Google web': "Everybody talks about the open web, but there is really the Google web," Satya Nadella testifies about how hard it is to break into search. Google pays Apple an estimated $19 billion a year for default placement on its devices.


  • Digital detox for children: China cracks down on screen time for kids. Internet access will be blocked from 10pm to 6am. The amount of time they can spend online each day will also be limited, according to their age.


  • Vishwaguru running after F-1: When will India have world-class universities?


  • Skills gap: India's population has surpassed China's, but its labor force is still lagging by a large margin. Labor force participation is only at 51%, trailing China by 25 percentage points.


  • Can India-Europe corridor rival China's BRI?: "It may make excellent political sense, but it goes against all the tenets of transport economics". China has a 10 year head-start with BRI with total investments under the initiative crossing an eye popping $1 trillion this July. Over 150 countries have joined as partners.


  • Brits want everyone to pay: Richest oil states should pay climate tax, says Gordon Brown... How about reparations for colonial loot?


  • Uncontrolled Vikas threatens Himalayas:Shimla was established during the British era to sustain 16,000 people. However today, the numbers have exploded and are estimated to be around 3,25,069.


  • 'Fear And Anxiety': Pakistan's minority Sikhs flee restive province in face of rising violence


  • Raag Nand: Vidushi Padma Talwalkar


Thursday, August 3, 2023

Quick notes: China's loss | Drone ships...

  • China's loss in India could be Elon Musk's gain: Chinese automakers face heat. Tesla has had a red-carpet welcome from India for its proposal to invest in the country, while its largest rival in electric vehicles, China's BYD, has been stopped cold by increased scrutiny from New Delhi.


  • Explained: How India has clamped down on Chinese products, investment


  • India Restricts PC, Laptop, and Server Imports: The aim is to curtail Chinese imports of popular tech products. IT security concerns might have also influenced this. . . . Delays restrictions.


  • Drone ships: A new form of drone tech has been gaining momentum in the Black Sea.


  • Child deaths due to Indian cough syrup: Riemann Labs, which operates out of Indore, has been banned from manufacturing medicines following an inspection by drug regulators. A batch of cough and cold syrup sold in Cameroon under the brand name Naturcold contained extremely high levels of a toxic ingredient.

    Earlier, the licenses of three cough syrup manufacturers – Maiden Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Marion Biotech and QP Pharmachem – were suspended and their exports were stopped after two of the firms were linked to the deaths of at least 70 children in Gambia and 19 in Uzbekistan last year.


  • Horse gram: Best drink to burn cholesterol naturally and effectively



  • Woke priorities: New York Times dedicates massive amount of time to reviewing vibrators. Refers to women as “people with vulvas.”


  • White man is a burden: The UK will drill for more North Sea oil and gas.


  • Chinese Firm's lithography breakthrough: Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group (SMEE) is on track to reveal its first scanner capable of producing chips on a 28nm process technology by the end of 2023


  • Raag Jhinjhoti - Jhala: Michael Griska - Surbahar


Sunday, April 30, 2023

Quick notes: Changing warfare | Industrial policy

  • A war which changed the very nature of war itself: "In the First World War, we invented the machine gun on a tank, and that changed the nature of the war; in the Second World War, we invented aerial bombardment of enemy cities. Historians will look back at the war in Ukraine and realise how drones and autonomy started to take off, and that was a step that changed the nature of war. I think international regulation will eventually be introduced to stop the potential use of killer drones because these are ultimately going to be weapons of mass destruction”.

  • Still clueless on manufacturing: Our industrial policy is based on a conceptually flawed approach of picking winning firms rather than sectors. This is the opposite of the successful approach adopted in East Asia, which did not select winning firms but adopted a combination of a horizontal, cross-sectoral industrial policy and a focus on some key sectors.

    Between 1979–2014, manufacturing remained at 16–18% of India’s Gross Value Added (GVA). Since 2015, it has declined and reached 13% by 2019, the lowest ever since 1960. . read more.


  • CJI must come clean and apologise: For the Chief Justice to confuse gender with sex and claim there is no such thing as an absolute concept of a biological man, is not only anti-science, it is dangerous if applied to the fields of medicine and forensics.


  • Caribbean nations want UK to pay reparations for slavery: Britain traded more slaves than nearly any other country, transporting 3.1 million Africans to its colonies in the Caribbean, as well as to North and South America.


  • Misleading ads: How Bournvita lost the trust of its consumers


  • Vidhushi Smt Malini Rajurkar: Tarana in Raag Shankara.



  • K K Muhammad: Out of 200 Bateshwar Hindu temples in Madhya Pradesh, 80 got restored during Congress Govt and the remaining 120 temples could not, since BJP Govt didn't support.




  • Wetlands are nature's shock absorbers: But India is losing them at an alarming rate